A Measure of Redemption
by Lyra Ngalia
Summary: A drive outside Chicago brings Thomas an unexpected chance and a difficult choice. Post-Turn Coat, spoilers for Turn Coat


**A Measure of Redemption**

There was a woman.

Maybe it would always start with a woman.

Before, cars were things I used to get around, and my criteria for buying them included a) how well they'd hold up under whatever monster of the month got dropped on them, and b) how well they fit the Toe-moss persona. The Hummer had been perfect for the first part, but not so great for the second. I sold that one. The Jaguar fit the second and I never had to test out the first. So I sold that one too. Now, my only requirement is that the car goes fast.

Because if I feel like driving these days, I want to go fast. Fast enough that it's dangerous even to monsters like me. Fast enough that I can't hear myself think for whipping wind. Fast enough that the dreams and the memories can't catch up.

Well, I can try, anyway.

* * *

I was outside Chicagoland. It had been a rough night, and the last thing I wanted was to see Lara and hear her tell me how proud she was that I'd come to my senses. So I drove. Crawled out of Chicago and then floored it, taking every turn at a hundred plus, getting honked at by every trucker out there hopped up on speed and caffeine. Don't know why they bothered. My reflexes were better.

I drove until the gas light came on, then pushed it a little farther until I got to a gas station. Even late at night, the place was well lit, full of people. College students on spur of the moment road trips, aforementioned truck drivers looking for a fix. Idiots like me trying to run away.

The car got a couple of jealous stares, and I got a few disgusted ones as I filled up, but those I'm used to. The place smelled like gasoline, sour sweat, and spilled coffee. I'm used to that, too. But then a breeze blew through, sweeping away some of the _Eau de Gas Station_, just enough for me to notice the faint, rotten scent of ghoul. Ghouls and I don't get along, and scenting them made me edgy, even as I told myself that it wasn't my problem. That I was done playing games, done trying to be Robin to Harry Dresden's Batman. That even civilized monsters don't go saving people from other monsters.

The muffled shriek of surprise said differently.

I looked around me, but no one seemed to have heard anything. Not that they would. I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it if I hadn't smelled the ghoul. Movement caught my attention, a bent, shady figure slamming the door on a white unmarked truck and heading behind the gas station convenience store. Bowed, walking with an unnatural gait. The pump clicked off at that moment, my gas tank full. It was _some_ kind of signal, for sure. A signal that I could leave and drive away. Or a signal that I didn't have any excuse to _stay_ away.

I sighed. I might be a monster, but nobody deserved the fate they'd find at the hands of ghouls. At least when I killed, they died happy. I thought quickly, weighing my options in the brief seconds between the ghoul I saw getting out of the van and disappearing behind the shadow of the convenience store. At least two: one to grab the prey and stifle the muffled shriek, the other as lookout and now to join in the meal. Two had been a trick alone, even when I'd had all my gear. But I didn't carry the arsenal around as much anymore, so it was at least two ghouls and me empty handed.

I reached into the trunk of the car and grabbed the tire iron from the flat tire kit. It wasn't much, but it was big and heavy. Better than bare fists, at least. Without pausing to think about how utterly stupid it was, my demon and I ran across the parking lot.

* * *

For once, fortune favoured the stupid; there _were_ only two ghouls. The muffled shriek I'd heard had been the bigger one grabbing a bit of fresh meat, a trim young woman. Judging by the UChicago Athletic Department logo emblazoned on her shirt, and her legs, muscular but svelte, I was going to guess distance runner. I'm not sure if the ghouls were smart or stupid. She would be good eating, all lean muscle, but she was putting up one hell of a fight.

The tire iron was cold against my hand, and the demon riding shotgun made it easy for me to see in the dark shadows. The girl struggled, kicked hard one of the ghouls in the face with enough strength to make an ordinary man think twice, but monsters rarely thought twice when dinner was involved. The two ghouls were so preoccupied with subduing their potential meal that when the wind shifted, undoubtedly bringing to them the scent of another monster, they didn't even twitch.

Lucky me.

I can move fast when I want to, and this was one of those times I really wanted to. I needed the element of surprise. Finish one before the other noticed something was wrong or else it was going to be filet of student with a side of mashed vampire. So the demon and I asked one of the ghouls to dance.

The tire iron came down with a harsh, definitive crack on the ghoul's skull, the bone giving way like rotten fruit beneath the blow. That wasn't enough to kill it, but it kept the ghoul down while I grabbed the other one and pulled him off the girl a second before he sank his teeth into her thigh.

Fights aren't like they seem on TV or in movies, that's for sure. They don't come one at a time, in neat, choreographed moves that lent themselves to cool wall climbing maneuvers. Fights are dirty, messy things, and for a long long time my consciousness narrowed to the knowledge of the two ghouls, their sour stench, and the sticky ichor that ran down the tire iron as it bludgeoned skulls and pulverized kneecaps. I dodged hands clawing for my eyes only to have them dig into my arm, leaving long furrows that healed before a drop of thick pale blood could be spilled. A broken leg still managed to catch me in the stomach, driving me to my knees. A lucky swing of my tire iron kept them from dogpiling me, but just barely.

I swung, ducked, got my feet under me, swung again. Bone crunched beneath my arms as clawed fingers reached for my face. A shower of blows, inflicted and taken, and one ghoul was down for good. The other tried to run, but the fight had gotten my blood up, the demon pouring power through my veins, and I reached the second one before it managed to clear the shadow of the wall we'd been fighting behind. Its head came off with a sickening, squelching crunch, and I took the tire iron to its chest until it was just a smear in the dirt.

For a few seconds, I could hear nothing but the rush of blood in my ears. Slowly, the world started coming back in fits and flashes. First, I could smell the dark ichor that passed for blood among ghouls. Then the scent of fear, brushing up against the demon, and the sobbing, gulping breaths of the young woman I'd saved from the ghouls as she huddled up against the dumpster where they had tried to pin her. Only then did I notice I was Hungry.

I'd been well fed when I went out driving. Lara saw to that. But beating two ghouls to bloody pulp with my bare hands took its toll, and now that the demon's strength wasn't burning in my veins, the darkness felt like a gnawing abyss. I couldn't help it. I could pick out the woman's scent beneath all the blood and garbage, hear her heart race. She called to the Hunger, the promise of ice cold water on a parched throat, of food to a starving man.

With a single touch, I could banish her fear, could bring her to dizzying heights as I satiated myself with her mind, body, and soul. And why shouldn't I? I was the white knight who came charging out to rescue her from two foul assailants. It was only logical that she be grateful, immensely grateful after the horror of certain death. Wildly swinging emotions. I could feel her fear ebb even as she struggled to breathe, as her mind processed the fact that she might have escaped death tonight. Blind relief, with a single touch turned to lust.

It was so easy. I could. I could take her right here, feed her to the Hunger and leave her still enough to stumble home thinking she'd drunk too much. There was no reason for me not to. I wasn't that Thomas anymore, the starving exile. I could have her.

I could hear her breathing quicken as I stood up slowly, painfully. Even supernatural flesh cramped and pulled as it knitted and healed. I straightened, feeling the demon's pull, every part of me wanting the hunt, wanting to feed on that woman until the gnawing darkness quieted in my mind. I took a deep breath, the stench of ghoul blood and rotting trash mingling with perfume, with the scent of supple young flesh and the beginnings of heady desire.

I am a monster. I've always known that despite trying to run away from it. But to take her now, did that make me any better than the ghouls had been? What gave me the right to hunt her, as if she owed me something for her life? So much for being a civilized monster.

"Run." One word, and I could barely recognize it as my voice, rough with anger and want.

To her credit, the girl had brains. She didn't have to be told twice. She picked herself up on shaking legs and began crawling towards the well-lit gas station, skirting the smear of pulverized ghoul and the hungry vampire with a moral dilemma. I waited until she was far enough away that I could trust myself again before I made for the car, leaving behind me a swath of badly beaten flesh. The normals would probably figure someone hit a deer and dumped it. Something stupid like that.

I make it back to my car without incident, without anyone turning and asking about why I was coming out of a shadowy alley covered in something dark and foul smelling, with a tire iron caked in the stuff. I like it when they mind their own business. The tire iron got tossed in the trunk, and I climbed into the driver's seat, ignoring the fact that I was getting drying ghoul all over the upholstery. Lara will pay someone to clean it. The engine purred and I pulled out of the parking lot like I'm being chased by monkey demons throwing flaming poop, and point myself back toward Chicago.

I may be a monster, but at least I'm a civilized one.

I'll eat when I get home.


End file.
